Covering weight-loss drugs for elderly Americans on the state-backed Medicare health insurance programme would cost the US government $35bn over the next nine years, a congressional analysis has found.

Currently, Medicare, which provides prescription drugs to about 54mn over-65s in the US, only covers anti-obesity medications, such as Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster Wegovy, for patients suffering from another comorbidity, such as stroke risk, heart disease or sleep apnoea. 

Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the leading anti-obesity drugmakers, have been calling on lawmakers to change the rules so that the drugs can be covered for obesity alone. While a law prohibits Medicare from covering anti-obesity medications just for weight loss, a bill under consideration by the House of Representatives is aimed at changing that.